Echoes of Exile
by Balthassar
Summary: Sequel to Shades of Revan.  Chapter 1 rated M for **trigger warning**.
1. The Assassin and the Fool

The Assassin and the Fool

"_Your spirit, as diseased as it is, refuses to allow you to give up, no matter what threats you face... and whatever wreckage you leave behind you._" - Kreia

-0-0-0-

Jaq's plan, that he would find the Jedi and turn her in for a bounty, fell short when the miners in Peragus discovered that _he _had a bounty on his head and locked him in a containment cell. The irony did not escape him. His bounty was an old one that should have been wiped off the books after Darth Malak's demise, but efficient administration had never been a Sith strong suit.

"There's no one left to pay it," he'd sneered to the burly miner that wrested him into the cell. That had been some time ago. Days? He wasn't sure, but he knew he was weakening from dehydration and hunger.

"I'm worth less dead!" he'd called out several times, to whomever might be listening. This was not strictly true, but he was starting to get edgy. Were they really going to starve him to death? Why not put a blaster bolt between his eyes? He had a sense that something had gone terribly wrong, but was unable to break the emotion down into components, to understand it.

It was a stroke of luck when the Jedi showed up in her underoos with a vibrosword that looked like it had seen better days a few centuries ago. "Nice outfit," he'd remarked, his mind spinning a million miles an hour. Could she read his mind? Did she know about the bounty? Instinctively, he began reciting pazaak numbers in his head.

She regarded him for a moment, then deactivated the field. She did not _feel_ like other Jedi. She seemed very faint, very distant, more like a shadow—or an echo.

"I'm... Atton. Atton Rand," he said, stepping out of the cell on slightly wobbly legs.

She didn't answer at first. She seemed to be listening to something he couldn't hear. After a moment, she said, "I'm an exile," as if that were the only introduction required.

It wasn't until he'd gotten some food—measly dried rations—and water that he took a good look at the Exile. She was average at best, lots of sinew and taut muscle to her, but he wouldn't have cared if she was a Hutt. She had an honest face and clear eyes and she was in her underwear and she had a bounty on her head that would make a Mandalorian blush, and that was a damn sight better than anything else he'd encountered on this station so far.

-0-0-0-

Atton had the Exile all figured out. She'd been some cute chubby-faced kid once, what they called corn-fed on planets where they could actually grow corn, and she'd been nice and sweet, with her baby fat and her fair hair and her soft hands. Then the Jedi had preached and lectured all that right out of her. They'd put her through the academy (and if you thought there was any real difference between a Jedi academy and a Sith academy you weren't paying attention) where she'd learned to be competitive and dogmatic, just like Revan and Malak and all the other Jedi with a lick of talent, and years in the system worked that cute, pudgy baby fat right off. And then she went to fight in the Mandalorian Wars, and that made her lean and hard, and then she was exiled or something, and a decade later there you had it: a Jedi burn-out that could probably crack walnuts in her fist but wouldn't carry a lightsaber to save her life.

If you looked into her eyes you could see a razor-sharp intelligence, but it was also true that there was something naive etched in there. She should have been harder than she was; she should have been more weathered, more angry. She was one of those idiots who actually thought there was some good in the galaxy. All that mumbo-jumbo about turning away from the dark side, about everyone deserving redemption—she actually _believed _that crap. She really thought people could change.

So he tagged along. He told himself he just wanted to see if she'd do anything interesting. When they finally landed somewhere worthwhile, like Nar Shadda, he would ditch the whole lot. Maybe steal the Ebon Hawk and dump Bao-Dur out the airlock. But for now, he had all the time in the galaxy. He'd just wait and see what happened.

-0-0-0-

When the Exile came into the cockpit and asked him, abruptly, "Why do you play pazaak in your head?" he wasn't surprised that she'd basically told him straight out she was poking around in his mind. She didn't have a deceptive bone in her body, he'd already figured that out.

"You are the worst Jedi I've ever met," he told her, not bothering to look up from the console.

She waited. That was another thing he was figuring out. She was very slow to anger. Strife and aggression were his tools and his cloak; he found comfort in discord. Her unflappability was becoming annoying.

"Look, I don't just count cards. I memorize hyperspace routes and list off engine sequencers," he said. "You should do it, too. If you're ever fighting someone who has power over your mind, just pretend you're here, playing pazaak with me. You get it now?" He glanced up at her reflection in the glass.

She nodded once. She caught on fast, this one. "I felt your mind earlier," the Exile said. "I'm sorry."

"You're not the first," he replied. "But the apology is a new one." She turned to leave, and as she put her hand to the door he added, "Forget what I said. You're not the worst Jedi I've ever met."

"How many Jedi _have_ you met?" she asked.

It was tempting to tell her the truth, right there, just to see the horrified, disgusted look on her face, but merely entertaining the thought caused a cold, clawing sensation in his gut. The idea of her knowing his past, knowing what he was, made him nauseous. Inexplicably, he couldn't bear for her to think badly of him. He'd never cared what anyone thought of him for a long time. Now he cared a lot, and it didn't make a damn bit of sense.

"Uh, two?" he said, rolling his head back to look at her.

The Exile smiled. She would never be mistaken for a pretty woman, but that smile of hers... that smile made things just right.

-0-0-0-

Atton had finally done it. On Nar Shaddaa, when the Exile began sniffing around about his past, he'd unburdened himself. He'd told her everything. About the killings. About how he killed. About how he liked it. About what he'd done to that Jedi schutta that tried to crawl around in his head.

He'd expected a fight. He was a Jedi-killer, so naturally when she learned about his past she'd take him down. But her blaster remained holstered.

She'd listened quietly, without interruption, and nodded when he finished. "Thank you for trusting me," she said, and continued on as though he'd told her he had a secret past life knitting sweaters.

She had actually _turned her back on him _when mere minutes before he'd painstakingly detailed how easy, how thrilling, it was to murder her kind. There was no judgment in that open expression, no hate or anger or resentment. Just trust. Simple, honest trust.

He wanted to strangle her.

He stewed on it, going around and around in his own skull. Why the hell was he following her? Because he wanted to help her. Because he wanted her to respect him. He wanted her to appreciate him. But _why_? She wasn't good-looking. She having sex with him. She wasn't paying him. He was talking on a lot of risk with no reward and that wasn't his style.

He concluded that the Exile must be manipulating him in some way, she must be dipping into his mind and forging some allegiance. She was making him her pawn, to be discarded when no longer convenient, and all the while she was laughing at him. She was just like all the rest. She was just like Kreia—no, worse, because at least Kreia admitted she was manipulating him. At least Kreia allowed him to hate. At least Kreia mocked him to his face.

As he boiled in his own thoughts, he began to calculate. Kreia's hold on him was weakened while she was on the ship and he was roaming on Nar Shaddaa, and he was trusted to serve as a guide for the Exile in the bustle of the place. He waited until an opportune moment when they were alone and led his trusting charge to a row of apartments along a back alley under the pretense of taking a shortcut.

He'd motioned her into one of the open condos, almost impatiently, and she'd followed without hesitation. When she realized it was a dark, dank, empty room, and turned, a question forming on her lips, he'd already moved forward—he struck her clean and hard. If you were ambushing a Jedi from behind you always aimed for the head.

She hadn't been ready for it. She went down, and he was on her.

Jaq hit her twice more, solid blows, and shoved her onto the ground, forcing his knee between her legs. She struggled, but she was much smaller than he and those early strikes had stunned and disoriented her. She was so confident in her hold on him she'd never seen it coming.

"I'm not your slave," he snarled. "I'm not your little toy to be manipulated." He grabbed at her robes, ripping them open, exposing her. He would show her what it felt like to be powerless to another's will.

"Atton-" she began, and he couldn't stand to hear her voice, to hear her say that name. He grabbed her by the throat, digging in, his thumbs squeezing and cutting off the sound.

In the past, when hunting female Jedi, Jaq had always felt a thrill. He'd been excited and aroused by his dominance over them and he'd acted on that arousal. When they cried, when they begged him to stop, that only made him harder, and crueler, and longer.

But as he squeezed the Exile's throat, his body crushing hers to the ground, he felt nothing but a deep, pervasive nausea.

The Exile wasn't crying and she wasn't begging. She was staring right at him with those clear, honest eyes, and there was no fear or desperation or anger. When she reached towards his face, it wasn't to scratch him or gouge his eye. She stroked his cheek, so gently and kindly, and he knew that all she felt for him in that moment—maybe all she'd ever felt for him or ever would-was pity.

Atton released her as though she'd scalded him, scrabbling away on the dirty floor. He ran out of the apartment, desperate to get away from her, from that pitying gaze, and the nausea overcame him. He threw up in the alley.

It took some time, but he finally steadied himself and worked up the nerve to go back. She was waiting for him, her clothes carefully tucked back into place, a bruise flowering across her cheek.

"I'm-" he started, and choked on it. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he whispered, the words sticking in his throat. She opened her arms and he went to her, burying his face in her robes, feeling the calm beat of her heart against his cheek, repeating over and over that he was sorry and really meaning it. For the first time in many, many years he was comforted, encircled in her warmth and forgiveness.

He was a murderer, a rapist, a thief, a liar, and a torturer, twisted black and rotten inside, and in spite of it all, she forgave him. She believed in him. She trusted him.

From that moment forward, he knew he would follow her anywhere. He knew he would die for her.


	2. Echo

**Echo**

"If she is a Jedi she will forgive. If she is not she will not care." - Kreia

0-0-0

She moved among the refugees—separate, apart. They were not unlike the refugees she'd encountered during the war. Tired, hungry, angry, hopeless masses. Only the children were cheerful because they were too young to understand.

Nar Shaddaa collected refugees because of its position as a Mid Rim transportation and shipping hub. It had been that way before the war, too. She'd stopped here with several other Crusaders to pick up supplies, namely spare lightsaber parts. On any other planet such things would have been difficult to acquire and would have drawn questions, but here the traders were only interested in credits and paid little mind to a quartet of young padawans oddly bereft of Jedi Master supervision.

She hadn't liked Nar Shaddaa then. It was too abrupt a shift from the peace and quiet of Dantooine. She'd been tensed the entire trip, like a spring waiting to be loosed. "You'll have to get used to it," Voren had told her. "The battlefront won't be like the Khoonda plains."

Now it was different; she found the bustle of Nar Shaddaa and the commotion of the living almost comforting. For most of her exile she had flitted from one sparsely-populated Outer Rim planet to another, seeking a surrogate for Dantooine but never finding one. Now that she was back among crowds she found she'd missed them and the energy they brought.

The downside was that the bustle was distracting and she had company she could not afford to be distracted from. Dividing her attention between the bounty hunters that roamed the city and Atton was too risky. Sooner or later she'd make a mistake and then she'd be dead. She'd come too far to die now.

Allowing Atton to ambush her in the apartments had been a calculated risk, but she'd found a flash of something—some spark, some yearning—when she first brushed his mind on the Ebon Hawk. Anyone that sought love, that sought forgiveness, was capable of change, of being better, of being _more_. So she took a chance, betting that she could handle him if things went awry.

She'd been right, fortunately. If she had been wrong he would have killed her. She was a capable fighter in her own right, but he had a weight and size advantage and professional training that was distinctly Sith. It could have ended badly. It could have ended _very_ badly. For a moment she felt the phantom of his hands around her throat and mentally shook off the sensation. She must have made some outward gesture as well because she felt Atton hesitate at her side. He reached for her before letting his hand drop away.

She preferred that. She did not want any physical contact with him right now, not even a sterile shake of the hand. She was not strong enough to give him the tenderness and love he craved—safely distanced understanding and compassion were the most she could offer. It was a shame, because if they'd met as they were before the war, in another time and place, there might have been something between them. It was cruel irony that some of the most handsome faces she'd ever seen had housed the blackest hearts.

Abruptly, she thought of Kavar.

She wished she hadn't.

0-0-0

"You cleave to physical might," she said.

That wiped the smirk off his face. "That's what you think?" he asked, and there was an unhappy edge to his voice. She had hoped that by asking him to teach her Echani sparring techniques she would be able to teach him in turn. But during the matches he was too focused on dominating her physically to be aware of minds—his or hers—and his own vulnerability. Even now he did not understand her disapproval, he only knew he did not like it.

She could not teach him this way. She mentally retreaded her steps, weaving nimbly around the barriers he'd thrown up—the strong base emotions, the projections of anger and lust, the endless counting—and showed him an empty palm. It was a soothing motion and it had worked before.

"You must learn to open your mind," she said, keeping her voice level. "You must learn to feel the Force. You cannot block it out forever. These walls you've erected are only a temporary measure."

"Blocking it out works just fine, thanks," he said. "I'll stick to blasters and the occasional punch in the gut. That's how the galaxy works for the rest of us."

He still didn't understand. He had no inkling of how strongly the Force ran through him, leaking through his crude walls. Now that she was close to him she could feel it, a steady trickling, and it was only a matter of time before the Sith felt it too and were drawn to him. He had to be trained, but he was too old and he was not ready.

She had resisted touching his mind ever since Nar Shaddaa, but she pushed aside her revulsion and his blackness and his obscenity and she reached out—and stopped abruptly when she sensed the specter of Revan.

Revan had allowed her, wounded as she was, to return to the Jedi Council.

Revan had allowed him, Force sensitive as he was, to rise among the ranks of Sith assassins.

They had both been dangled before wolves. They were not so different.

There must have been something in her face because he dropped the rogue act for just a moment, betraying a flicker of concern. "What's wrong?" he asked.

All he'd ever known of the Force was suffering, pain, and torment. All he'd ever known of Jedi was manipulation, strife, and war. She understood what the slain Jedi woman had seen in his mind, what she'd tried to do, and wondered if Atton had ever been offered any kindness that wasn't wrapped in a lie.

"Meditate with me," she said, lowering herself into a cross-legged position on the mat.

"I don't see the point," he said, but he did as she asked. He always did as she asked.

She allowed her mind to expand, to reach out and touch the essence of the Force.

She thought back to teaching the younglings. She had always loved the younglings. She thought of how Atton had been a child once, and she focused her mind, willing herself to see him as such—sweet, innocent, pure. They had all been children once. They had that common ground.

_Feel the Force,_ she'd told the younglings. _Feel it sing._

"Feel the Force," she whispered, feeling that bright center of the universe that was at once so vast and so near. Through it, she sensed the vibrations of the ship, the heart beats of the crew, the explosions of faraway stars. "Feel it sing," she said. "Feel it move around us, with us, through us. Feel its eddies and its currents."

He grabbed her knee. The movement was sharp and his grip powerful, but she did not startle or open her eyes. "Allow yourself to reach out to the universe," she said, feeling the awesome pull of planets and galaxies in concert with the beat of her own heart. "Allow the Force to enfold you, to guide you."

He started to say something and choked, overwhelmed. He reached out to her with his mind, tentative and afraid, and she opened herself to him.

_Come._

Time passed. Around them, the galaxy spun, worlds orbiting stars, and within it were the tics of the coupling engines, the metallic whir of the droids, and the empty soundlessness of space. She did not know how much time passed, nor did she care. When she finally opened her eyes, she saw he was sweating and cold.

His hand was still on her knee, but it was relaxed and light now, almost as if it were not there at all.

"I want to learn," he said, his voice quiet. "I want you to teach me."

He finally understood.

0-0-0

Before she saw him, she knew. She felt a searing pain in her right arm at the shoulder, followed by a myriad of little pains and tortures, and knew he had been struck down. It would have been wise to cut herself off from him but she couldn't. It would have been a betrayal not to share his suffering after they had been through so much together.

The academy was a maze, but she made her way towards the core. When she finally found him the flood of his suffering had reduced to a trickle. He sensed her when she neared and she knew he did not want her to see him like this.

She knelt by him. His face was barely recognizable; of course, Sion could not resist destroying something beautiful. She caught hints of his jumbled thoughts, among them the observation that now he must look like so many of his victims.

"Did I save you yet?" he asked.

She tried to smile for him but she knew it didn't reach her eyes.

"That bad, huh? Now the outside matches." He paused. "I let you down."

"No," she said, in a forced whisper. She didn't trust the strength of her voice. "We died on Malachor. The echo has just taken this long to reach us."

"This is the only way it could end," he said. "All that death... I lied..." He was having a hard time focusing. He was having a hard time breathing. "You shouldn't see me like-I don't want you to see me like this. I was supposed to save-"

She kissed him. It tasted warm and coppery. The kiss seemed to give him vigor, and for a moment he returned it, crushing his mouth to hers, his left hand gripping her wrist. But when she pulled away his hold slackened she saw that had been the last of his strength.

"There is no death," she told him, but he didn't seem to hear. She could barely hear herself.

"You saved me," he said. "The joke's..."

..._On me._


	3. The Faithful Engineer

**The Loyal Engineer**

"I have found his impulses cold, like a dead weight, his thoughts are black." - Kreia

0-0-0

Bao-Dur felt cold.

He always felt cold now, as though something was missing from his core. Regret hollowed out a man. It sounded melodramatic, but it was true.

He hadn't always been this way. After the Mandalorians raided Iridonia and destroyed countless colonies he'd been angry and that anger kept him warm. He joined the Republic War effort and saw what the Mandalorians were doing—not just to the Iridonians, but to everyone—and the anger bled into hatred and he was warmer still. When he was promoted to lieutenant and his superiors approached him about making a weapon, he didn't think twice; he was burning white-hot.

So he built a weapon, a terrible weapon, and Revan made the plan and the General gave the signal. They all knew it would be terrible, but they didn't know how terrible until the moment after the generator was activated. The planet buckled under the power of the gravity vortex. Ships from both fleets—Mandalorian, Republic, and Jedi—were crushed into Malachor's surface while others were twisted and rended into slag. The core of the planet fractured. Everything on the surface was annihilated and a once-verdant planet was reduced to a lifeless, storm-swept husk studded with the corpses of thousands of ships.

It was in that moment, when Malachor was torn open wide and he realized the mistake he'd made, that the coldness began creeping in. It was just the barest sensation at first, but it soon spread and ran through him. He left the fleet and went into the private sector as a mechanic, but still the coldness spread; he moved on. He went into private defense development, but his condition did not improve. Finally, he joined the Telos Restoration Project.

It was his hope that restoring life to a war-ravaged planet would ward away the encroaching chill and this hope sustained him. He diligently tolerated it all: the unpleasant conditions, the shuffling Ithorians, the harassment from Czerka, the low pay, and the grueling hours, and waited for a thaw to come. As he stood on the Telosian beaches looking out at the shield wall, he felt a sense of calm knowing that his planetary shields were holding the poisonous clouds at bay and keeping the planet safe. It wasn't quite a sense of peace, but it was a sort of refuge, and he clung to it.

Though Bao-Dur had great respect for the Jedi and the power they called the Force, he rejected the notion of destiny. If he accepted destiny, he must also accept that the Mass Shadow Generator and the rape of Malachor V was somehow inevitable. Nevertheless, when he found the General's crashed ship on the surface of Telos, he had to wonder at the coincidence. After all this time, and after everything that had happened, what were the odds that they would meet each other on the remote surface of this struggling planet?

He pushed his way into the shuttle wreckage and offered her a hand—his left, no less—and she accepted it without hesitation. She did not flinch back from the hum-thrum of his repulsor arm and its harsh light.

"Good to have you back, General," he said, helping her up, and he meant it.

"I'm... sorry," she said, making no pretense at recognizing him. That almost stung, but he checked himself: her silent nod, signaling the deployment of the Mass Shadow Generator, was etched into his memory as the catalyst for the most catastrophic event he had ever witnessed. But for a Jedi General who had fought through the Mandalorian Wars and been exiled, and had no doubt experienced many traumatic events, a lone Iridorian engineer would have easily gotten lost in the mental shuffle.

"Bao-Dur. I was in the mechanic corps at Malachor, General," he said. "I had both arms, then," he added, attempting levity.

He caught a flicker in her expression and recognized it—she remembered him now, and the remembering was painful. He sensed she did not want to talk about Malachor. He didn't either. He said, "I think the others will be fine. They're out for the moment, but they seem tough. Both of them."

The man and the old woman came to shortly. The man groaned, complained, and muttered something under his breath about pazaak. He hardly seemed to notice Bao-Dur or care that he was there. The old woman did notice and the foreign, clinical look she gave him made him feel chillier inside, if that were even possible.

Seeing the General again was strangely comforting, in spite of their history, but the company she kept... that he could do without.

0-0-0

Bao-Dur did not intend to stay with the General longer than necessary. He could have easily requested transportation to Citadel Station after the liberation of the Ebon Hawk, but he held back. The others did not question his continued presence among them and, though they were strangers and the Ebon Hawk a strange ship, it felt natural to him to stay. When Atton took them into hyperspace, leaving Telos and the Restoration Project far behind, Bao-Dur couldn't shake the sensation that he was heading in the right direction. He would return to Ithorians and Telos eventually, but now it was time to move on.

He kept to himself, occupying himself with repairs, and was mostly left to his own devices and the company of his remote. Atton and Keira had apparently chosen to sequester themselves—he in the cockpit, she in her "chambers," as she called them—but the General occasionally came to the garage to talk.

It was small talk. Light, friendly, and never straying to the past they shared.

After several days he felt comfortable enough to broach the obvious question, the question he'd held in his mind every since they'd been reunited on the surface of Telos.

"General, why don't you carry your lightsaber?"

He wasn't sure how she'd react to such a personal question, but she took it in stride as though he'd asked her a casual thing, like what she'd eaten for lunch or her favorite color. "It was taken from me by the Jedi Council after I was exiled."

"You could make a new one," he said, emboldened by her openness.

"The lightsaber is a symbol of the Jedi."

Her rejection of the Jedi, both as an organization and as a part of her identity, bothered him. "A lightsaber is a part of who you are," he said. "Without it, how can you be complete?" He'd worked alongside many Jedi during the war. Their lightsabers were extensions of them that remained forever steadfast at their sides. He'd never heard of a Jedi willingly parting with it. It would be like... well. Like a mechanic willingly parting with his arm, he supposed.

"It's a symbol of something I left behind," she said. "I'm not a Jedi anymore."

He wasn't sure what to say. How did one stop being a Jedi? How did one divorce oneself from such an integral part of one's being? "That must be difficult," he said finally.

She looked at him, really looked at him, then said, "War brings many difficulties."

He couldn't argue with that, but drew from her tone that the conversation was over. "If you change your mind, I can help you find parts," he said, oddly disappointed.

"Thank you," she said, placing a hand on his arm, and there it was. It was subtle, an almost imperceptible thawing, but he felt it. There was some sort of invisible glow about her, a light he could only vaguely see out of the corner of his eye, and he felt it affected him, warmed him. Even after she turned away and went to the cockpit, he felt it.

The remote, impatient to resume work, orbited his head, beeping insistently.

"All right," he said. "All right. You're the boss."

Her touch never left him. Even as he worked into the hours, he could still feel the warmth of it. It comforted him in a way that even the Telosian beaches had not. Malachor V, with its gravitational anomalies and dreadnaught graveyards, felt farther away than ever.


	4. Echo 2

Echo

"_None of us realized the magnitude of what we unleashed._" - Bao-Dur

0-0-0

Bao-Dur was a Force ghost: a glowing part of a past she'd sooner forget. She did not remember him specifically, however hard she tried. Even in her recollections of that moment—_the_ moment, when she gave the slight nod of her head that would set all future events in motion—she could not recall his face. She remembered everything else about those doomsday minutes, but the engineer to whom she issued the final command was ever-faceless in her reimaginings, even after they were reunited. All of the non-Jedi crew were faceless in her memories. This did not surprise her. At the time, it had been all about her, Revan, and Alek. It had always been about the Jedi—about the Order and the Crusaders and winning the war. She'd been young and flush with ambition, fueled with conviction and rightness, knowing they were the only ones that could save the day, win the war, fix the galaxy. Consequently, Jedi casualties had been names and Republic casualties had been numbers.

At least, until the Mass Shadow Generator had been activated. Then all the casualties became names as they went screaming into the void. She'd heard them then—thousands of voices crying out in unison, only to be abruptly silenced.

Things became hazy after that. It was hard to sift through those later memories of her confrontation with Revan, her final meeting with the Council, and the decade of wandering. Years and planets blended together.

Waking up on Peragus had brought some clarity, and meeting Bao-Dur again on Telos had jolted some of those old, fuzzy memories into stark relief. She could feel the presence of his mind in a way she could not feel the others. When she reached out to him, he responded. It was as though she had been reunited with her own shadow.

She shifted on the dormitory cot and fished the Diatium power cell out of her robes. She held the slender metal cylinder between thumb and forefinger. Her friends at the Academy had argued endlessly about crystals. Crystals were important, she granted, but without the power cell there was nothing. The power cell was the beginning. She was sure Bao-Dur would agree.

0-0-0

They stopped arguing when she entered the garage.

The crew hid their squabbles from her, or tried, but she had never heard Bao-Dur raise his voice, not even towards Atton, and when she sensed the disturbance she was drawn to it.

Mandalore was done with the conversation, even before she'd arrived, and he brushed past her towards the dormitories, his footfalls heavy.

"War is war," Mandalore said in passing. She could tell that he was not angry. His patience was spent, perhaps, but he was not angry.

Bao-Dur didn't bother to reply. He tossed his hydrospanner into the toolbox, but he missed slightly and it clanged loudly against the edge of the box and onto the garage floor. Anger rolled off of him in heavy waves, but it wasn't like Atton's black hatred, or even Mira's quick temper. It was a cold, heavy, weighted anger. It was always present, but at times like these it seeped out, seeming to touch everything around him.

She sat at the workbench. "Is this a bad time?" she asked, knowing full well it was, but also knowing he would never turn her away. She held out her palm and the power cell gleamed in the bright light.

"You found parts," he said, and she felt some of his anger ebb away and he closed the distance between them. He took it from her, holding it in the light for a brief inspection, and said, "It's in excellent condition. But you still need a few things. A lens, a focusing crystal..."

She removed the small, cloth-wrapped bundle from inside her ropes and spread it out across the worktable for his inspection.

Bao-Dur laughed softly. "General, you've been holding out on me." He examined each salvaged part in turn, nodding with satisfaction. She'd been loathe to spend credits when so many supplies and repairs were needed, but she'd managed to barter and haggle the parts across several planets and she'd haggled well.

Every Jedi built a lightsaber and she'd been no exception, but the process had been a challenge for her, even after intense study of schematics in the archives. The construction of her first lightsaber had been the most difficult part of her training. At that time Alek had helped, conferring with her on the design and assuring her when she second-guessed herself, but now Alek was dead and she hadn't looked at a schematic in over a decade. She needed help.

Bao-Dur, for his part, embraced the distraction. He always did. They worked together in relative silence for some time, but as she was fitting the primary crystal to the mount he said, "Aren't you bothered by him?" She didn't answer, and he said, "Traveling with him brings back too many memories."

"Mandalore's no threat," she told him.

"You're too trusting, General." She felt the remnants of his anger bubbling just below the surface.

She took a liberty—one she would not have taken with the other men—and slid her arm around his waist. He smiled, faintly, and she felt the anger subside, returning to that place deep within him.

"You have a calming effect on me, General. Surely you did years ago, but I didn't notice then. My mind was too occupied, I suppose."

"You're angry," she said.

"I can feel it drifting away," Bao-Dur said. "I feel more in control. But you're right. I've been angry at the Mandalorians, Czerka, Revan... I've been angry about everything for a long time."

"And me?" she asked, withdrawing her arm.

"Never, General," he said.

She knew she was on the brink of some revelation—not about him, but about herself—and she resisted, retreating even as the shadows of Malachor began to rise up around them. "You blame yourself," she said, "but we were both there."

"We were all there."

"Guilt accomplishes nothing," she said, aware that it was no longer a conversation but a soliloquy. "Hasn't there been enough suffering?"

"There will never be enough," he said.

0-0-0

As she coughed on the steam and fumes of Malachor, scrabbling to pull her aching body out of the ash and dust that covered the ground, she knew Bao-Dur was dead.

She'd felt it when she was ejected from the ship. There was a sensation in her chest as though something was breaking deep inside. She had the keen sense of separation, as thought a part of her was scooped away and gone. Her chest throbbed.

Bao-Dur had followed her back to this graveyard but he could go no further now. She steadied herself, staring out across the dark, barren landscape. There were things out there—she could feel them—but nothing human, and nothing Iridonian, either.

She collected herself and took stock of her surroundings. She had never seen the surface of Malachor up-close after the detonation. The heavy fog filtered the soft light, and though there were shadows everywhere, she cast no shadow of her own. She looked back at the Ebon Hawk, wedged precipitously between two columns of slag, and wondered if she should risk it.

In a moment, the decision was made for her. The ship shuddered and groaned, and the column supporting it abruptly gave way. The Ebon Hawk fell spiraling into the chasm.

There would be no body and no funeral. As quickly as the ghost from her past had reentered her life, so he left it. She wondered if there would be no trace of him at all, but she heard the soft, familiar beeping of the remote. There was a small shifting in the mist to her far left, and then it was gone, the beeping quickly fading away as it departed on its final mission.

Even after death, Bao-Dur would finish what he'd started.


	5. The Huntress

**The Huntress**

"_She was not born to be a predator." _– Darth Traya

0-0-0

The Exile's pace was casual and her look plain, but she had already attracted attention—more than enough. Mira wondered how many other bounty hunters were on her trail. Probably too many. And now she was wandering around alone. Not smart.

When the Exile neared the entrance to the Jekk'Jekk Tarr, Mira stepped out from behind a row of cargo crates. "You don't look so tough," she observed.

The Exile didn't seem surprised as she turned to face her. "A bounty hunter," she said.

"Not a bounty hunter—_the_ bounty hunter. I'm the one you have to watch out for." Mira kept her blaster-hand ready, but the Exile wasn't going for her own blaster, at least not yet.

"Are you sure?" the Exile asked. Something in her tone was just enough to throw Mira's nonchalance off a notch. Who the hell was this Jedi, anyway?

"You know this is a trap, right?" Mira asked. "You realize Visquis is going to deliver you to Goto, and when he does it will start a war."

The older woman smiled. There was something so easy and trusting about that smile. Mira could imagine them as friends, and for a brief second she did. She felt drawn to that promise of friendship, even as the all-business part of her brain reminded her that a target was a target.

Mira almost felt bad about her plan to gas her.

0-0-0

The move from Nar Shaddaa to Dxun wasn't as much of a culture shock as one might think. The constant noise of civilization and technology was replaced with the sound of untamed life and the looming skyscrapers and smog were replaced with dense foliage and lush canopies that blocked just as much sunlight. Mira hadn't left Nar Shaddaa in years and the loudness of nature surprised her—the insects, the birds, the animals, the falling of rocks and trees, the rush of water. But she acclimated quickly, just as she had on Nar Shaddaa, and soon the cacophony was reduced to ambiance.

The wilderness reminded her of training with her adoptive Mandalorian unit. They taught her to think like a hunter, to take advantage of her surroundings to isolate and immobilize prey. Later, she'd survived on those skills in Nar Shaddaa. It was strange how easily the skills of the wilds lent themselves to that claustrophobic urban environment.

Mira led the way, but the Exile easily kept pace; she was no stranger to rugged terrain. Mira wondered if the Jedi had spent her banishment in a place like this. She'd heard of Jedi sequestering themselves to remote forests and using the density of life to prevent tracking by other Force users, much as Zez-Kai Ell had done.

When they reached a tripwire Mira quickly disabled it, using a trick the Mandalorians had taught her all those years ago. Her vibroknife neatly severed the wire without detonating the charge and she pocketed the explosive and the detonating device. Waste not, after all.

"You're Mandalorian," the Exile said, apparently recognizing the technique.

"Close enough," Mira said, sheathing the blade. "My family was captured when I was young. The unit adopted us and put us to work—hunting, tracking, carrying supplies. It's how they increase their ranks."

"Nar Shaddaa is a long way from Mandalorian space," the Exile said.

"After Malachor, I floated with the refugee tide until I ended up on Nar Shaddaa. I didn't pick it off a travel brochure or anything."

The Exile's eyes flicked to her for a bare moment, then away again to the path before them, evidently disturbed. The Exile was an unusual Jedi in the sense that she didn't hide her feelings well. At least, not from Mira. Curious, and appreciating the apparent advantage, Mira pressed on. "I hear you were at Malachor as well," she said.

"Yes," the Exile said.

"And?" Mira asked.

"And," the Exile said, as though this were some kind of answer.

-0-0-0-

Mira didn't get where she was without being perceptive. She noticed little things. Not just tripwires, mines, and pressure plates, either. She noticed body language, inflection, moods—all the little tells that made the difference between getting and losing a target, between folding a hand of pazaak or going all-out. Mira trusted her gut, and her gut told her there was a lot of history between Kavar and the Exile, and it wasn't just sex, either. There was something else, something downright ugly.

"You've been through a great deal," Kavar was saying.

The Exile shifted her weight. Her jaw was tight, her breathing a little too deep. She was willing calm and was just barely managing it. Mira realized she'd never seen the Exile angry before. It bothered her; inexplicably, she felt angry herself, as if she were soaking up the Exile's emotions by proximity.

"I have," the Exile said, finally. "No thanks to you."

"You have to understand what it was like for us. It was so much uncertainty," Kavar said. "Revan turned on us, and the Jedi who went to war fell to the dark side and joined her. And considering your condition... The Council thought you were a spy."

"And you thought they were right?" the Exile asked.

Kavar hesitated. "You were the only one that came back," he said. "It didn't make sense. Why would you—why would anyone—come back? After Malachor? After everything?"

"I came back," she said, "because the Republic was my home. I came back because I'd done nothing wrong. I came back because I don't run away when things get hard, Kavar."

Kavar's expression darkened, and Mira felt her stomach knot. It was as though _she _had been betrayed by a lover and had come across him years later, everything still unresolved, to find him unrepentant and cold.

There was a commotion at the front of the cantina. Both Jedi looked towards the sound. Kavar said, "I'll get word to you when I'm able," the words clipped, formal.

And just like that, he was gone.

"Did he-" Mira began, unholstering her blasters as Colonel Tobin's men rushed the room. Did a Jedi Master just _run away_? Were they even allowed to _do_ that?

"Master in title only," the Exile muttered, drawing her own blaster, and it was almost as if she'd read Mira's mind.

0-0-0

"So what's your deal?" Mira asked, leaning against the navigation console.

Atton reached for a hydrospanner without looking at her and kept working. "I don't know what you're talking about," he muttered, his voice muffled underneath the console.

"I'm trying to figure out why you're here," Mira said. "If you're half the big-shot pilot you think you are, you could be making credits hand over fist just about anywhere. On the tracks. On the routes. Wherever."

He didn't answer. He was becoming increasingly difficult to read. When she returned from Dxun with the Exile and Mandalore she'd sensed a change in him. It was like he'd made some sort of decision and he was set on a path. What path, she couldn't say.

"I suppose the Jedi bounty's what drew you first. You seem like the type. But if you were going to cash in, you would have done it on Nar Shadda. Or you could have ditched us on Dxun. Hell, if you were smart, you'd be halfway to the Inner Rim by now."

"Whoever said I was smart?" he said, but she caught that slight quirk at the corner of his mouth. It was one of his two tells—it meant he was being deceptive.

She wasn't going to let him off that easy. "What can you possibly hope to gain?" she asked. "There's nothing here for you."

His eyes remained intent on the underside of the control panel where he was working. "What do you care?" Then, after a moment, he said, "She needs my help." He licked his lips, and that was his second tell—it meant he was being sincere.

It was rare for Atton to show any vulnerability. Mira recognized the quick flash of underbelly, but couldn't bring herself to strike; it was inhumane. "You really are a fool," she said finally, shaking her head.

"I've been called that by people more important than you," he said, but his tone lacked its usual edge. She'd hit a nerve. Probably more than one. "Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered by the attention, but maybe instead of obsessing over me you should be asking yourself that question."

"I'm here because my bounty's here," she said, automatically.

"Guess I'm not the only fool," he said. "If you'll excuse me. I'm sure you can show yourself out. Preferably out the airlock, but I'll settle for out of my sight."

She left. She told herself she felt sorry for him.

0-0-0

The pieces eventually fell together. No argument on the Ebon Hawk was private, and Bao-Dur's characteristically soft voice was uncharacteristically loud and angry when he confronted Mandalore in the garage.

"I destroyed your people," he snapped, "and you compliment me?"

For some reason, the comment stuck with Mira, and as she sat in the common room rigging grenades her mind kept wandering back to it.

_I destroyed your people._

He meant the weapon, or whatever it was, that Malachor V had been on the receiving end of. Bao-Dur was an engineer. Did he create the weapon? And if he did, that would mean-

_General._

Suddenly, the title had a new meaning.

Mira found the Exile alone in the cargo bay meditating or whatever in space the Jedi did when they sat cross-legged with their eyes closed. The Exile opened her eyes immediately in anticipation and Mira didn't miss a beat.

"I'm going to ask you a question," she said, "and you're going to tell me the truth. Are you responsible for what happened to Malachor V?"

"Yes," the Exile said.

"Of course," Mira said. "Naturally, they'd have a Jedi do it. Jedi don't understand what it's like to have a family or to lose one. Is this the part where you say you're sorry and we both go on like nothing happened?"

"No," the Exile said, evenly.

"Annihilating a planet, slaughtering families, killing your own people—and not even a measly apology? What, was that some Force-given directive from on high? Maybe collateral damage wasn't an issue for you. Maybe the choice was easy for you."

"It wasn't an easy choice, but it had to be done." The Exile wasn't backing down. She was certain of her rightness, and her certainty was infuriating.

"Stay away from me," Mira said. "If you come near me, I swear I'll shoot you in the head and dump you out the airlock."

The Exile did not reply; Mira left her there.

For the next few days Mira nursed her irritation until it boiled over and became cumbersome. She'd fought through all of these emotions when she was fourteen. She didn't have the will or energy to fight through them all over again.

When she approached Atton in the cockpit to ask when they would reach Dantooine he told her, and added, "Any requests?" His reflection in the cockpit glass was looking at her with something like-what—empathy? Terrific. Now even the ship's idiot felt sorry for her.

"You're not getting rid of me that easily," she said, and later she realized it was true. She wasn't leaving. She was going to see this thing through, whatever it was. She had to. She didn't know why, and she didn't care. She just knew she had to do it.

0-0-0

Mira sensed the Exile, standing, waiting, but she said nothing. She popped out her blaster's gas cartridge, dropping it into the box of spent parts, and replaced it with another.

"I'm sorry about your family," the Exile said. "Please don't dump me out the airlock."

"Look, don't worry about it. I thought I worked through all that, but I obviously didn't. Getting pissed off isn't going to bring them back." Mira slid the blaster back into her holster. "I guess you lost your family too, right? Didn't they take you away when you were a little kid?"

The Exile nodded. "I don't remember my biological family. The Jedi were my family."

They'd both lost their families after Malachor. That mollified Mira, somewhat, and she scooted over on the bench. The Exile accepted the space, sweeping her tunic against the backs of her legs as she sat. She always did that.

"You didn't really think I'd dump you out the airlock," Mira said.

"Well, you gassed me," the Exile reminded her. "And stole my stuff."

"That's true. Sorry about that. Though in all fairness, I might have saved your life." Even Mira was too charitable to assume that her so-called rescue plan had been particularly good or well-executed.

"So, what's the deal with Hanharr?" the Exile asked.

Mira balked—the question was totally unexpected. "Do you really want to hear this?" She asked, nudging the older woman with her elbow. The Exile nudged back.

For now, Mira decided, everything was all right.

0-0-0

After the others went down, Kreia didn't even look at her.

"And the assassin," the old woman breathed, and Mira felt the rip-tear of the Force slamming into her, throwing her across the cold stone floor. The blow knocked the wind out of her, but the accusation crushed her spirit.

Assassin.

Maybe all these years she really had fooled herself, cloaking what she was in terms like "bounty hunter" and "tracker." She always prided herself on not-killing—not killing who? Who _hadn't_ she killed? She'd even killed Hanharr, in the end.

She heard footsteps running away and knew they were Atton's. But it wasn't a retreat—she knew that, too. She had also sensed Sion's presence moving closer. Doubtless Kreia sensed it as well.

Mira climbed to her feet, gripping the lightsaber tightly in her fist. The weapon was too foreign and she was too unskilled. She wasn't ready. But it didn't matter. Finally, she understood the strategy of the game they played. It was about time. On this barren, toxic rock, where the past and future collided, it was all about time. She didn't have to win. She didn't have to get her target. She didn't have to save the day. She just had to buy time.

"I wonder," Kreia said. "What is one such as you to one such as her?"

Mira didn't say, "A friend." Instead, she charged.


	6. Echo 3

Echo

"_She will miss you and think of you often." _- Darth Traya

0-0-0

Mira reminded her of what it was like to be young and right, when decisions were easy and the way forward was simple. The Exile missed that. The sense that, whatever one did, it was the right thing. The certainty that no temptation was strong enough, that her will would never break.

She had a new appreciation for the Masters on Dantooine—even Vrook—and how patiently they had borne padawan idealism. She thought back to those turbulent times, before the Republic entered the war. She thought back to Revan storming out of the council chamber, her anger white-hot, while the Masters looked on: patient, stoic, serene.

When Alek asked her for help, the Exile was so convinced of their rightness, so sure of her judgment, that all the patience and wisdom and serenity in the universe would not have given her pause. Nothing could stop the Crusaders. They would have charged into the deepest core of the hottest star, if Revan led them there.

Nowadays, things were not so easy. The path was difficult to see. Sometimes, she was not sure if there was a path at all.

0-0-0

When Mira talked about men, using euphemisms like "ion thruster" and "power coupling," the Exile felt the full weight of her choice—the choice to be a Jedi first and a woman second.

It wasn't easy. Twice, now, she'd awoken late at night, fresh from a sensual dream with warmth between her legs and an intense urge to go to the cockpit and release the tension once and for all. She knew he wouldn't turn her away, even though the fantasies that slipped past his counting-game had changed. He no longer imagined penetrating her; instead, he though about lying side-by-side in the dark, of clasping her tightly and never letting go, of feeling feeling the intimate beat of her heart. In the jumbled, tangled coils of Atton's mind, sex was still interwoven with violence, fear, anger, possession, and degradation. What he craved—love—was something far removed from the physical act as he understood it. To proposition him would be irresponsible, maybe even cruel. She resolved that she would never use him that way. She would be the one Jedi that didn't take advantage of him or manipulate him. It was the closest thing to love she could give.

"Hey," Mira said, drawing her back.

The Exile didn't respond immediately. The fact that Mira even asked her about Atton meant she was slipping. To show physical attraction was to show favoritism. She tried to lock dangerous feelings and emotions away, but she could never truly hide herself. The others always seemed to know what she was feeling, and worse, they empathized, even when they shouldn't, even when her feelings directly contradicted their own personalities and character. It was strange. It was unnatural.

Mira shifted; lulls in conversation made her uncomfortable. "Sorry. I guess asking you about men is pretty inconsiderate. Jedi don't love, right? Don't have sex. It's some kind of rule."

The Exile could have said a lot of things on the subject, this age-old subject, but she didn't have the energy. She didn't want to talk about the lonely dreams, when natural urges attacked her late at night while she was sleeping and defenseless. She didn't want to talk about how a decade of celibacy felt a lot longer than that. She didn't want to explain why sleeping with Atton would be a violation, that it would be taking advantage of him in a way that was unforgivable.

"It's a really small ship," she replied, instead.

"I understand," Mira said, with a ghost of a smile.

_Do you?_ the Exile wondered.

0-0-0

"Why are we back here, again?" Mira asked.

This visit to Nar Shaddaa is quieter than the last. The warring crime lords and bounty hunters were elsewhere vying for power, trade routes, and contracts. They had more important problems than an unknown Jedi. Since most of Nar Shaddaa's fringe element has been hired out as soldiers, and were off the planet fulfilling those obligations, the city was relatively peaceful, even for a Y'Toub planet.

The Exile paused at the railing, looking down the hundreds of stories of stacked city space. Now that half of the underworld bosses were dead and the rest were distracted, the common folk had spread out, moving their footprint deeper into the city.

"I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes I feel like I can hear their individual voices," Mira said. She leaned forward, looking down. "It's like..."

"An echo," the Exile said.

"Yeah, that's it."

"Everything is connected through the Force," the Exile said.

"More religious mumbo-jumbo," Mira said. And yet... For the first time, the Exile sensed that the younger woman's certainty was wavering.

"The Force ebbs and flows," the Exile continued. "In a place like this, teeming with life, you can feel it, like a current. The echo is their resonance with the Force." She paused. "Why do you suppose you can feel what a Jedi feels?"

Mira licked her lips. "I thought... I thought I just had a sense for people," she said. The resistance that the Exile felt during their earlier conversations was gone, eroded and washed away. It was often like that with Force-sensitive adults. They were adamant and steadfast against until one day, finally, they opened themselves completely.

"Can I show you?" the Exile asked.

"Yes," Mira said. Her voice was a little hoarse, and the Exile could feel her anticipation and her anxiety, her fear. She didn't tell Mira her premonitions—that she sensed she had a bright future, strong in the Force. She didn't tell Mira that out of the entire crew she would likely be the sole survivor.

0-0-0

"Anywhere?" Mira shifted on the mat, stretching. "Hmm. Coruscant."

The Exile had a sudden, vivid memory: throwing her lightsaber down at Kavar's feet.

_"Take it_," she'd said. She'd never hated anyone more than she'd hated him in that exact moment. Not even Revan.

"Why?" the Exile asked.

"Big city. Transit hub. Lots happening. Tons of bounties."

The Exile shifted, stretching her right leg, and made a non-committal noise.

"What's wrong with it?" Mira asked. "You've been there, right?"

In the Exile's mind, Coruscant was a symbol. Not just for the Council or Kavar, but for the entire Order. A sprawling, bloated metropolis with a facade that concealed centuries of decaying infrastructure.

"It's a beautiful-looking city. I just wouldn't want to live there."

"Fair enough. What's your pick?"

The Exile smiled. "Believe it or not... Dantooine."

"Wait, _Dantooine_? As in, place-we-just-went-where-everyone-hates-Jedi Dantooine?"

The Exile laughed. "I meant my Dantooine," she clarified. "When I was at the enclave. The plains were so peaceful. Sometimes Alek and I used to hike out to the hillside and watch the brith." She smiled again, thinking of Alek, and the smile faded when she reflected on his fate.

"You've mentioned him before," Mira said.

The Exile nodded her head once, faintly. She and Mira shared a lot with each other, but she wasn't ready to talk about Alek. Not yet.

Mira understood, and shifted the subject as she moved into the next stretch. "Then again, maybe it would be nice to settle down. Not Dantooine, I couldn't settle down that much. Alderaan, maybe. Take up pottery. Meet a fine young poet, pop out some Force-sensitive babies."

This segue had the desired effect. The Exile giggled.

0-0-0

Mira gripped her hand tightly, painfully, urging her forward.

They ran, holding onto each other, battered and bloody. Around them, the academy was crumbling. Malachor was finally dying, a complete death this time, and the Exile was ready to die with it.

Mira wasn't letting that happen. When the Exile stumbled and fell, Mira hauled her back up, kept her moving.

"Come on, come on," Mira panted, hugging her tightly as she pulled her along.

"The ship-" the Exile managed. She'd seen the Ebon Hawke fall into a chasm. There was no way to escape. The little droid had delivered Bao-Dur's final rites and now the planet was devouring itself.

The Exile's mind flickered back to Kreia's words: "Her death will occur in many years time on a forgotten planet, saving the lives of others." Not this forgotten planet. Not now. The Exile had sensed something similar—a feeling that Mira had a bright future, a future far away from Malachor.

A sudden swath of light broke the dark, foggy horizon and both women looked up.

Mira let out a triumphant laugh and squeezed her, hard.

When she recognized the Ebon Hawke's crescent-shaped hull, the Exile squeezed back.


End file.
